The Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs threatened to pull off a huge upset but the NRL’s form player ensured his side left with the two points.
Here come the Sea Eagles. With hat-trick hero Tom Trbojevic returning from a cheek injury, right on cue Manly climbed into the top four for the first time this year with an unconvincing 36-18 win over the Bulldogs.
They were made to work for it at Redcliffe and won’t want to repeat their diabolical first half display, but whatever Des Hasler said at halftime did the trick.
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There was fire and brimstone with Manly firebrand Josh Aloai binned for lashing out with a boot to the face of Josh Jackson as tempers flared.
Talk about perfect timing. The Sea Eagles will stay in the top four so long as they beat the Cowboys in Townsville next week and will get the vital two bites at the cherry in the finals series.
All three teams above them will be looking over their shoulders at Hasler’s team, but they must be way better than what they dished up against the Dogs.
The fact remains that the Sea Eagles were last after four rounds and have found a way to get themselves in the premiership fight.
Daly Cherry-Evans was born just up the road at Redcliffe Hospital but the Bulldogs were not respecting any birthright and stunned a shoddy Manly to take a 12-10 lead into halftime.
Bulldogs enforcer Jack Hetherington was put on report again for a high shot on Morgan Harper but like the rest of the Canterbury pack he refused to be intimidated.
The Sea Eagles bombed try after try and were ragged in defence as Canterbury took a shock 12-4 lead when former Australian Schoolboy Matt Doorey split them down the middle and Jayden Okunbor barged over.
Cherry-Evans took matters into his own hands and set up Haumole Olakau’atu before the break. Tom Trbojevic went in for three in the second half to get Manly home, but without him they would have struggled.
The Dogs’ woes continued when Doorey suffered a suspected ACL rupture.
Record breakers
Manly keep notching individual and team records.
Jason Saab, Garrick and Trbojevic are having their own internal competition for club leading try scorer. Trbojevic has 22, Saab (22) and Garrick (20). It is the first time a team will finish with three players in the same team having scored 20 or more tries in a season.
Garrick, already the highest Manly point scorer in a season, notched his 40th linebreak for the year and joined Nathan Blacklock (1999) and Preston Campbell (2001) with the most in history.
Dogs dig
It was a horror week off the field for the Bulldogs with Lachlan Lewis and Adam Elliott both stood down and under investigation by the NRL Integrity Unit for off-field indiscretions.
That didn’t stop Canterbury from rolling up their sleeves and taking it to Manly with Jackson leading his pack with grit.
The Bulldogs will claim their first wooden spoon since 2008 and another unwanted record of the first Canterbury side to lose 10 games in a row in the same season.
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